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Teatro de EEUU
Jueves 10 de septiembre de 2014, 11:30 h (Duración: 2 horas)

Answer THREE questions, at least ONE from Section A and ONE from Section B.
Each question carries the same amount of marks.

SECTION A
Close Reading: Consider the context, content, form and dramatic conventions (where appropriate).
What is the significance of each extract to the play as a whole?

1. CLAY. Are you angry about anything? Did I say something wrong?
LULA. Everything you say is wrong.
[Mock smile]
That’s what makes you so attractive. Ha. In that funny jacket with all the buttons.
[More animate, taking hold of his jacket]
What’ve you got that jacket and tie on in all this heat for? And why’re you wearing a jacket
and tie like that? Did your people ever burn witches or start revolutions over the price of tea?
Boy, those narrow-shoulder clothes come from a tradition you ought to feel oppressed by. A
three-button suit. What right do you have to be wearing a three-button suit and striped tie?
Your father was a slave, he didn’t go to Harvard.
CLAY. My grandfather was a night watchman.
LULA. And you went to a colored college where everybody thought you were Averell
Harriman.
CLAY. All except me.
LULA. And who did you think you were? Who do you think you are now?
CLAY.
[Laughs as if to make light of the whole trend of the conversation]
Well, in college I thought I was Baudelaire. But I have slowed down since.
LULA. I bet you never once thought you were a black nigger.
[Mock serious, then she howls with laughter. CLAY is stunned but after initial reaction, he
quickly tries to appreciate the humour. LULA almost shrieks]
A black Baudelaire.
CLAY. That’s right.
LULA. Boy, you are corny. I take back what I said before. Everything you say is not wrong.
It’s perfect. You should be on television.
CLAY. You act as if you are on television already.
LULA. That’s because I’m an actress.

2. AARONOW. Well, well, well, talk to me, we sat down to eat dinner, and here I’m a criminal
…
MOSS. You went for it.
AARONOW. In the abstract …
MOSS. So I’m making it concrete.
AARONOW. Why?
MOSS. Why? Why you going to give me five grand?
AARONOW. Do you need five grand?
MOSS. Is that what I just said?
AARONOW. You need money? Is that the …
MOSS. Hey, hey, let’s just keep it simple, what I need is not the … what do you need …?
AARONOW. What is the five grand? (Pause.) What is the, you said that we were going to
split five …
MOSS. I lied. (Pause.) Alright? My end is my business. Your end’s twenty-five. In or out.
You tell me, you’re out you take the consequences.
AARONOW. I do?
MOSS. Yes.
Pause.
AARONOW. And why is that?
MOSS. Because you listened.
PLEASE TURN OVER
 2

3. TYRONE. That God-damned play I bought for a song and made such a great success in – a
great money success – it ruined me with its promise of an easy fortune. I didn’t want to do
anything else, and by the time I woke up to the fact I’d become a slave to the damned thing
and did try other plays, it was too late. They had indentified me with that one part, and didn’t
want me in anything else. They were right, too. I’d lost the great talent I once had through
years of easy repetition, never learning a new part, never really working hard […] I was wild
with ambition. I read all the plays ever written. I studied Shakespeare as you’d study the
Bible. I got rid of an Irish brogue you cold cut with a knife. I loved Shakespeare. I would
have acted in any of his plays for nothing, for the joy of being alive in his great poetry. And I
acted well in him. I felt inspired by him. Could have been a great Shakespearean actor, if I’d
kept on.

SECTION B

Essay: Your answer should make explicit reference to particular scenes and extracts from the plays
referred to in the question.

1. Consider these words by Arthur Miller:

[The system love] is embodied in Biff Loman, but by the time Willy can perceive his
love it can serve only as an ironic comment upon the life he has sacrificed for power
and for success and its tokens.

Do you agree that in A Death of a Salesman Willy realizes in the end that his son loves him
but cannot do anything about it?

2. Is Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf all about meaningless fun and games, or
does something more important happen in the end?

3. Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959) is about matriarchal strength in Afro-
American family structures. Do you agree?

END